


Minute by Minute

by GoldenSnowflake



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Age Difference, Danny's age is debatable, Ephebophilia, Eventual Smut, Isolation but not really, M/M, Pompous Pep, Psychological Trauma, Season 3 hasn't happened, Slow Build, Space-time Shenanigans, Vulnerability, extended period of time alone together, trapped in a bubble
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 18:28:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4110766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenSnowflake/pseuds/GoldenSnowflake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Stuck in a fishbowl made by your father with your arch enemy. You have the worst of luck, don't you?" While in a pocket of the Ghost Zone where hours feel like days, Danny springs a trap that leaves him with two options that may not be mutually exclusive: talk to Vlad or go completely insane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It started off like any other misfortunate encounter between us - he found me, interrupted my concentration with absurd, childish trash talk, and attempted to shoot me with blasts of energy before I could retaliate. I could’ve elected to fight him off, but he surely would’ve noticed the small, glimmering urn I was attempting to unearth from where it was lodged in the ground, and the last thing I need is for him and his friends to come poking around it only to end up in another dimension where one’s thoughts manifest instantly. Instead, I fled, delighted when the boy thoughtlessly gave chase.

“Not gonna fight back, Plasmius?” Daniel’s voice echoed through the caverns, amplified by the layers of ghostly, intertwining stone. “You must be smarter than I thought.”

I leapt from the sheer cliff the mouth of the cave opened into and took flight toward another suspended mass of weathered rock, not needing to glance behind me to know that he was following close behind. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Daniel.” He hurled another blast at me, narrowly missing. He uttered something under his breath when two of my doppelgangers and I emerged from our hiding place, scattering in several directions, all leading away from the treasure I’d have to return to at a later date. Noble as ever, the boy followed.

Watching him fight off both of my clones betrayed the fact that he was still improving, becoming quicker and more clever when dodging both close-ranged tactics and distanced ones. The greenish murk of the ghost zone swirled around him, and I made sure to hover in plain sight just as the second of my doppelgangers vanished while he was grappling with it.

“Are you done hiding behind your clones?” His eyes flashed brilliantly with righteous anger.

“Are you ready to let me teach you how to distinguish between obvious fakes and your real enemy?”

Baring his teeth, he lunged at me, and with a gleeful grin I led him further.

I had barely begun to decide where to take our battle when a profound feeling hit me. I froze, my cape billowing around me, and I had a moment to listen closely before Phantom shouted something close behind.

“Daniel, wait! Something isn’t-”

The teenager made impact, hitting me squarely between my shoulder blades with his fist and sending me toppling forward in the air. The tight feeling in my throat intensified a thousand fold, and as I pitched forward, a blinding forcefield electrified before me. I hit it on my hands and knees, and then he hit _me_. I shouted indignantly beneath him, and Daniel let out an undignified puff of air, stunned by the unexpected landing.

“-right,” I finished lamely.

Danny scrambled to his feet, the sound of his boots resembling that of walking on a thick piece of glass. I gazed at the energy beneath my palms as it fluctuated and glowed. The boy fell backward, and he landed flat on his backside with a grunt. He blinked up at the sizzling wall of energy as it snapped, his gaze resting on something overhead.

“What’s - is this another one of your lousy traps?”

“Do you think I would be foolish enough to be caught in an invention of my own design?” The walls surrounding us were curved, and I settled for leaning back on my hands, sparing a glare at the teenager before following his stare to the device at the top of the globe. It was a peculiar little disc, and from a tiny lens on the underside it seemed to be releasing its energy. I ignored Daniel’s snarky “yes,” scrutinizing the thing, trying to decipher how it was producing the forcefield and how to deactivate it-

“HELLO!”

The booming voice knocked both of us back, echoing off the walls and making my teeth vibrate in my skull. I snarled in disgust and Danny yelped in dismay, and a hologram flickered to life between us, giving a face to the obnoxious voice that we both immediately recognized.

“Oh _no_ ,” Daniel moaned, pressing his palm to his head and blinking at the flickering image of his father’s smiling face.

“If you’re watching this, you’ve been captured by my one-of-a-kind Fenton Ghost Globe! Congratulations!”

Maddie’s bright orange goggles appeared at the edge of the frame and Jack glanced at her.

“Er, uh - it would be one-of-a-kind if we hadn’t made a whole bunch of them … anyway, there’s no point in trying to escape, because the shield is foolproof! We think.”

Jack wheezed, clearly having been elbowed off-camera by Maddie.

“You may be wondering why you’ve been captured in one of my brilliant inventions. And the answer is because you’re a ghost. A bad, bad, ghost. And if we can stop you from being bad, then, by gosh, we will! The only problem is that we haven’t figured out how to power the globes for more than twenty four hours at a time, so as long as you’ve got a magazine or some playing cards with you, you should be able to stay occupied.”

“ _Jack_.” Maddie’s voice was quieter. The man flinched at her tone. “Don’t _tell_ them that!”

Jack blinked. “Oh. Sorry, honey.” He cleared his throat, returning his attention to the camera with a severe expression. “We threw a whole bunch of these things into the ghost portal, so attempting to enter our world through it could quite possibly spring yet another trap! Your best bet is to go away and be bad somewhere else. Trust me: you don’t want to tangle with Jack Fenton.” The camera went askew and shifted around, catching a second of Maddie scolding her husband and her husband protesting quietly. The image refocused on Jack’s face, and he grinned. “Bye!”

The hologram disappeared.

“Please tell me he didn’t say what I think he said,” uttered Danny under his breath.

Torn between my irritation with Jack and my amusement at Daniel’s distress, I merely blinked at him. He knocked his head back against the forcefield and threw his arms out, managing to lie down somewhat despite the cage’s shape.

“Stuck in a fishbowl made by your father with your arch enemy. You have the worst of luck, don’t you?”

The look he gave me was venomous. “Shut up.”

The silence lasted for a good thirty seconds.

“He didn’t really say twenty four hours, did he? Please tell me I’m losing my mind.”

“You’re losing your mind.” He frowned at me again and I shrugged innocently.

“What’s gonna happen when I don’t show up for dinner? Or bed? Mom and Dad are gonna _flip_.”

“Quite the conundrum, I agree. At least you’re not trapped in another dimension because of the incompetence of your own father! That’s about the _only_ way I can imagine this day getting any worse for you.”

This was enough to have him scrambling to sit up. “For once can you - you know what? Forget it. Can we just … call a truce until this thing powers down? I’ll just try to sleep and you just sit there and be creepy. Then tomorrow, we go our separate ways and forget this ever happened.”

My jaw dropped in disbelief. Daniel watched me warily. “What?”

“Do you not … you don’t know, _do_ you?”

He looked to be on the verge of tears. “ _What_ don’t I know?”

It took a moment to figure out where to even begin. “How far into the ghost zone have you travelled?”

“None of your business,” he replied immediately.

“How far have you gone save for the plane on which the Fenton Portal exists?”

“Even if I knew what you were talking about, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Daniel - have you ever been out this way before? Where you ran into me today.”

“Well, no.” He crossed his arms, brilliant gaze flashing. “What does that have to do with anything?”

This was _good_.

I pressed my fingers together, crossing my legs at the ankle. The corner of his mouth twitched in what appeared to be a fleeting look of disgust. “Not all areas outside of the human world are governed by the same kind of time.”

“And?” He sounded entirely uninterested.

Pleased at the opportunity to teach the boy something of use, I looked at the offending piece of technology above our heads in thought. “Think of time as a measure of the rate at which things decay. Things subjected to a gravitational pull break down faster than things in space. Things on planets with more gravity decay faster than they would on other planets. There’s even a teeny difference in how quickly humans age based on how far from the Earth’s center they live, and that’s all within the laws of a _single dimension_ , not even accounting for the way light and temperature dictate a person’s idea of time passing.”

Despite saying nothing, it was clear that under his expression of skepticism he was fascinated.

“The reason humans don’t all migrate in droves to live on mountaintops is that the lower level of gravity at high altitudes only adds a few days onto a person’s life. Most people would rather live among the hurricanes and giant pythons in Florida and risk dying young than be up in the cold.” Now I was just rambling.

“What does any of this have to do with us?”

_How to put this gently_ … _hmmm_.

“Since the ghost zone and its various dimensions within is governed by completely different rules of time and physics, a day in the human world feels like far longer here. Every hour that passes at home without you returning will be more like an entire day to us here!”

I ended with a flourish, grinning expectantly at Daniel. Not sharing my excitement, the teen’s face became the color of his hair.

After a long moment, his lips cracked open. “I really hope you’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

I wasn’t.


	2. Chapter 2

Closing my eyes and flinching, I shielded myself as Danny hurled a fist at the device suspended over our heads. Energy exploded where he struck, his fierce cry bouncing off the walls and making my ears ring.

For the eighteenth time.

Collapsing onto his backside, the teen gasped for breath. To no one in particular, he yowled, “Why isn’t this _working?!_ ”

“It’s a projection, my dear boy,” I replied despite the fact that he was clearly addressing every organism in the universe other than myself. “You’d have to break through the forcefield before you could even reach the device creating it.”

Threading his hands in his hair, Daniel let out a frustrated growl.

“Is it safe to assume that you’re done giving us both migraines?”

“I don’t _get_ migraines.”

“Jack does.”

“Dad?” He lifted his head, propped up by his elbows. “No he doesn’t.”

Surprised that Daniel didn’t know about his father’s headaches, I watched him silently. He gazed back, expression inscrutable.

“Don’t talk to me,” he finally concluded. His head hitting the forcefield sounded like a fist rapping on the screen of a tube television.

Silence fell over us for what seemed like hours, the humming of the energy encapsulating us enough to be almost soothing. After a while, I attempted to phase back into human form and did so successfully.

“What’d you do that for?”

Daniel was again staring at me.

“The cape was getting a little warm,” I replied dryly.

“How’d you know changing back wouldn’t make you phase through the forcefield?”

I raised an eyebrow at him cryptically in response and he groaned quietly before smacking his head back down. There was no reason to admit that it simply hadn’t occurred to me to try until then.

While I hoped we’d be freed before the set limitation, I wasn’t about to get my hopes up. Jack Fenton has always had a spectacular knack for succeeding only when the results are detrimental to others. I idly unfastened my cufflinks and pulled my tie loose, attempting to get as comfortable as possible while strategizing how to maintain my sanity for what would feel like years before our release. Daniel’s eyes burned into me as I pretended not to notice.

“You know if there’s a camera on that thing, they’re gonna know who you are, right?”

“There isn’t one,” I replied simply.

He sat up a little more. “How do you know?”

“Because I recently bought all of the cameras of the brand they use that were on the market, and all of them to be made for the next month and a half.”

Danny stared at me silently and flopped back against the wall.

At least he seemed too bored to remain quiet for long.

I spent a while scrutinizing my nails and polishing my rings on the silk of my tie, taking the time to dwell on the location from which I’d purchased each and focusing on the details surrounding each buy. These memories would anchor me to my life when time began to warp and feel endless. I had gone through the upcoming appointments for the rest of the week and the dates of each Packers game for the remainder of the season before the boy stirred once more.

Daniel rested his hands on his stomach, letting out a long sigh. “ _How_ long is this thing supposed to last?”

“Twenty-four hours.”

There was a moment of contemplation. “And _how_ long will an hour feel for us?”

“About a day.”

I could hear the frown in his voice. “That’s oddly convenient.”

He glanced at me. I shrugged.

“How good are chances that some wandering ghost will find us out here?”

“Greater than the chances of them actually deciding to free us,” I replied.

“Oh,” he muttered. “Right.”

The fog drifted around our bubble. Energy buzzed mutedly.

“If I fall asleep, you better not attack me.” Daniel shifted around, struggling to find a comfortable position against the curved barrier.

“And ruin the anticipation? Never!”

The boy sniffed, seemingly unsurprised by my reply, but his eyes remained closed. He interlaced his slender, gloved fingers over the white insignia on his chest, planting the heels of his boots firmly on the flickering surface. He was asleep within minutes.

It was peculiar to see him so suddenly at ease. The taut lines of his face softened gradually, leaving him to appear much younger than he really was.

A strange feeling began to worm its way into my head at seeing the halfa so still while in his ghost form. So rarely did I encounter him as anything more than a black streak hurtling toward me that it felt profoundly unnatural to see him utterly still.

And it never ceased to unnerve me to look at his features. Half Maddie. Half Jack.

He was their creation - the product of a union that made my insides ache with agony and envy - and yet he was more like me than either of them could ever have been. I swallowed thickly, forcing down a swell of anxiety.

If I truly wanted him to become my ally, this would be the greatest opportunity I would ever get.

Danny slept, completely still save for the rise and fall of his chest, for what must have been hours. The fact that he was able to fall unconscious anywhere near me - let alone with the knowledge that I was right next to him, watching - was a surprise. His constant suspicion of me, righteous as it may be, made it clear that it wasn’t because he trusted me not to cause trouble. That only left me the conclusion that he was utterly exhausted.

It made sense, I supposed. His parents were almost entirely absent in the emotional support department, his peers bullied him relentlessly, and the weight of protecting Amity Park fell squarely on his small shoulders, and those were all of the issues _aside_ from puberty and the struggle to plan for the future. It was honestly quite remarkable that Daniel managed to maintain such confidence and focus. He was, from my perspective, utterly overwhelmed.

If he would just let me _help_ him, it would be so much easier…

After a long while, he stirred, letting out a long breath. His eyelids fluttered to and fro and the white hands twitched where they were clasped. Daniel was quiet once more, but it was obvious that he was awake.

I left him alone for another long while and focused on memorizing the details of the life I’d left behind in the human world. He remained far too rigid to be asleep.

Clearing my throat, I rolled the sleeves of my dress shirt up, taking the time to make the folds meticulous. “It would be beneficial to talk, Daniel.”

The snowy-haired teen huffed with annoyance, moving around as if I’d woken him up. It wouldn’t have done any good to inform him that faking it was unnecessary, so I held my tongue.

“Why? So you can mess with my head and try to get me to become your mini-me again?”

“In the right circumstances, it only takes a few hours for isolated people to start losing their minds. If we don’t keep ourselves occupied, the thing ‘messing with your head’ will be far worse than me.”

Danny sat up, rolling his shoulders. “Why do you care?”

“I’m only looking out for your wellbeing, my dear boy.” I gave a small shrug, unable to bear his scrutiny without making some sort of defensive gesture.

“Fat chance,” he muttered. “You’d have to be a selfless, upstanding citizen for that to be the case.”

He stared at me, deadpan, before we burst into simultaneous laughter. I quickly realized I was being insulted and scowled at him, but he smirked back, pleased with himself.

“Come on, Daniel. There’s got to be something inoffensive we can discuss.”

“How about ‘no’?”

Undeterred, I rested a finger under my chin. “How’s school going?”

“None of your business, Vlad.”

“How are your friends?”

“No.”

“Good heavens.” A smile crept onto my face. “How are your parents?”

“Perfectly happy without you.”

“And your sister?”

“Still thinks you’re creepy.”

“How’s dear Valerie?”

“Okay, from what I know - hey.” He pointed an accusatory finger at me. “You stop that.”

I made no effort to hide my smug grin.

“I’m serious. If you think you’re going to trick me into giving you information that could hurt my dad, you’re wrong.”

“I _do_ have priorities other than erasing your father from the face of the Earth, you know.”

“Oh yeah?” He sat forward a bit, pulling his knees toward his chest. “Like what?”

“Well, investments. I could have firms do my investing for me, but I prefer to be in control of my portfolio. That alone counts as an entire career.”

“That’s _one_ thing.”

“I write a blog about the Packers too. I’ve studied their strategies and the dynamics between the players enough to become quite a respected guru among the fans.”

“That takes what, an hour a week?”

“I study ghosts throughout history and try to sort out the baseless lore from the actual supernatural phenomena. I then attempt to link the accounts and stories to the ghosts I know of. It’s incredible how an entire culture can be shaped by the actions of one ghost with too much time on his hands.”

“Oh.” He blinked owlishly. “That’s … kinda cool, actually.”

“How often do you hear in fairy tales of the sirens who lured sailors to their deaths with beautiful, hypnotic singing? It’s a story told to children generation after generation. You and I personally know the ghost responsible.”

“Ember?” His eyes widened when I nodded. “Holy cow.”

“The more events throughout history I can concretely attribute to a specific ghost, the easier it is to predict how often each individual will cross over into our world to cause havoc. Being able to paint a better picture of typical ghost behavior also helps in figuring out how ghost genetics are affecting my own impulses and desires.”

“Ugh.” Daniel let his forehead fall against his knees. “Can we _please_ not talk about your impulses and desires?”

My fingers clamped down where they rested on my biceps. “Where you got your absurd idea that I’m some sort of lecher I’ll never know.”

“You’re kidding, right?” He peeked up at me through his bangs.

“I was always a gentleman with Maddie. _Always_. I had no reason to think she’d prefer a much more … forward approach, shall we say. Entitled. Audacious. Brazen. Et cetera. By the time I’d learned otherwise, I was waking up every morning in a hospital bed and her interests had shifted … elsewhere.” Venom seemed to have leaked into my tone at some point. I took a deep breath, willing the scowl from my face.

“You’re lying,” he uttered.

“I’m not.”

I wasn’t.

“The point, my dear boy, is that I fill my time with far more than making Jack’s life difficult. Honestly, from what I’ve gathered spying on you all, he accomplishes _that_ all by himself.”

Daniel gave me a funny look. My hand flew to my mouth.

“Did I say spying? I meant - ah - sending you invitations to fake parties and paranormal conventions…?”

“How often do you spy on us?”

“Sometimes.” I looked away, resettling my crossed arms over my chest. “A perfectly moderate amount. I can quit whenever I want.”

“Do you…” He hesitated, and I knew he was biting his lip without having to look. “You don’t…”

“There are no surveillance devices in your bedrooms, if that’s what’s worrying you. There are some things even _I_ don’t want to know about.”

He let out a sigh, his shoulders deflating with it. Despite his ghost form’s immunity to physical tiredness, the exhaustion came off of him in a wave. “I don’t know why I’m not more horrified at the thought of you watching me when I think I’m alone … probably just accepted the idea a long time ago.”

Well _that_ was an odd thing to say.

It also brought up another issue. I frowned in thought. He only worried about being spied on while alone?

“Daniel, are you still dating Miss Manson?”

The way his hands tightened on his knees betrayed the answer. “That’s really none of your business, Plasmius,” he muttered, and I watched the grimace flicker across his features before he was able to will it away.

Despite the fact that it shouldn’t have shocked me, I found myself staring at the space between us in disbelief. Samantha, while a nuisance due to her hatred of me, seemed to be intelligent and devoted to Daniel’s wellbeing. How long had I seen him gazing longingly at pictures of her or idly sketching her likeness in the margins of his textbooks? How many times had the audio feeds in the Fenton house picked up their lighthearted, nervous conversation?

“Give it time. Things may work themselves out.”

“No.” He looked up at me. “They won’t.”

Something clenched in my chest at the emotionless gleam in his pale green eyes. It was something I’d seen many times before - mostly in the mirror - yet seeing the same look reflected on his boyish features defied everything I knew about him.

“I’m sorry, Daniel.”

Phantom turned his gaze to the green fog swirling around us, his ever-musical voice devoid of emotion.

“Like hell you are.”


	3. Chapter 3

The silence was endless.

Daniel gazed up at the device hanging above us, his eyes following the same pattern over and over. If he thought he was deciphering some flaw in it, I couldn’t tell what it might be. He shifted, crossing his legs before pulling his knees back against his chest minutes later. His features were fixed in a careful blank, but his shoulders were pulling closer together as time went by, and his knuckles were going into spasms every time he rested his palms on his legs. I made a conscious effort to stay calm despite his infectious, antsy tension. _Appointments. Game schedule. Rings_.  Had it been a year ago today when I bought the sleek platinum band on my left index finger? Today was the fifth ... or was tomorrow the fifth?

Danny growled in annoyance and fidgeted again, and I closed my eyes and forced myself to take a deep, slow breath. The buzz of the forcefield had almost faded from existence for a while, but now it was deafening, making my ears ring and my jaw ache.

We couldn’t have been confined here for more than twenty ghost zone-hours yet it felt like far longer. When my limbs had started feeling stiff I’d changed back into Plasmius. Even in my inhuman form, though, I was beginning to feel confined, and infuriatingly, my joints began stinging again. I knew it was purely psychological which only served to make my anxiety harder to will away. When I transformed back to my human self, the snowy-haired boy continued to stare right through me, completely absorbed in his thoughts.

“This is the worst day ever.”

I glanced up at him to find Danny staring upwards, his hands pressed to his temples.

“Daniel, we need to talk.”

“Leave me alone, Vlad.” He shot me a dismissive glare. “It’s not gonna happen.”

“Assuming your parents’ invention functions as intended, we’ve exhausted four percent of the device’s energy at most. If we don’t keep ourselves distracted the results aren’t going to be pretty.”

“What?” He pushed himself into a sitting position, brows furrowed in disbelief. “ _Four_ percent?”

When I only stared at him grimly, he squeezed his eyes shut and let out a long, shuddering breath.

“We don’t have to talk about you, my dear boy. You choose the topic.”

He hesitated, then nodded, biting his bottom lip. “Okay,” he breathed, more to himself than me, and a chill ran up my spine. In college, Maddie had done the same thing dozens of times when confronted with a problem she couldn’t solve. I swallowed thickly and waited.

“Okay, uh … what exactly did you and my parents study in college?”

“I double-majored in metaphysics and paranormal investigation. Well, I was only majoring in metaphysical studies, but then I met Maddie. Your mother was double-majoring in paranormal investigation and electrical engineering. She said that if she could do it, I could too. That’s how we met Jack.”

“Mom knew you before Dad?” He eyed me skeptically and I nodded.

“By a few months, yes.”

“Did you … I mean, what degree did you get? I know you had the accident, but you went back, right?”

I rested my clasped hands on my knee, smirking. “Take a guess.”

“You went, um … oh.” He slapped a hand to his forehead. “Is it a master’s degree?”

“That’s the one!” It was impossible to hide how pleased his unimpressed expression made me.

“Ugh.” He rested his chin on his knees again, his back heaving with a quiet sigh. “That’s so much school.”

“It gets better in college, little badger. Whether you were part of the out-crowd or not-”

“The _in_ crowd,” he corrected.

“-is that what you kids say? -it doesn’t matter once you graduate high school. You’ll find yourself friends with people you never would have been in public school.”

The teen gazed up at me tiredly.

“Talk, Daniel. Ask me another question.”

“Uhhh…” He frowned. “How do you get Skulker to work for you? I mean, aren’t you ever worried he’ll double-cross you?”

“Of course it’s a concern. All of the technological improvements I’ve furnished for him can be deactivated with a code spoken by my voice only.”

“Oh. That’s pretty smart.” _Yes, yes it is._ “What’s the password?”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to tell you. Why don’t you take a guess?”

“Hmmm.” A small smile spread across his face. “Maddie Masters?”

He had the nerve to look up at me, only to find me glaring at him. “ _No._ ”

“Jack is stupid?”

“No.”

“Jack is dumb?”

“I’m not twelve, boy…”

“Vlad for mayor.”

I shook my head and Daniel pursed his lips in annoyance.

“Go Packers?” I replied with a ‘nope’ and he groaned. “I don’t know what the stupid code word is. Can’t you just tell me?”

“Where would the fun in that be?” Danny’s frown deepened ever so slightly and he shifted around, straightening his legs to stretch them and crossing his arms, mirroring my position. He had subconsciously stretched himself out to encroach on my personal space, which I was careful not to draw attention to. Causing him to withdraw again could be disastrous. “When you guess correctly, I’ll tell you.”

The pull on his brows was petulant at most now. “Why are you such a jerk?”

“To give you the opportunity to ponder such philosophical questions, of course.”

The boy began drumming his fingers furiously on the electrical field surrounding us, the taps bouncing off of the walls and echoing strangely. I winced. “Why can’t you just tell me? It’s not like I’d be able to overshadow someone who’s half-ghost and as powerful as you are anyway.”

“You really should have more faith in yourself, Daniel. I have no doubt that, with what I’ve learned already as a head start and training, you could overtake me with very little trouble.”

His eyes were wide now. “You really think so? Holy crap.”

“It kills me to imagine how much more I could learn studying a halfa other than myself. It’s so difficult to run tests and experiments as both the lab rat and the researcher…”

“Maybe you should’ve taken a marketing class,” he snorted. “Because I’m _so_ not in.”

“Come, now! They’re not _all_ excruciatingly painful.” I clasped my hands, grinning hopefully.

_Perhaps I_ should’ve _taken a marketing class…_

“Still, it’s kind of amazing that you think I’d be able to overshadow you. I can barely keep control of my friends for more than a couple of seconds…”

“Practice. It’s only a matter of practice. Although I wouldn’t recommend it when it comes to those you care deeply about. Things can get … messy.”

“Trust me, I already know,” he uttered under his breath, and his face reddened almost imperceptibly. “One time this-”

Frowning, I watched as all the color drained from his face.

“Oh. Oh my God-”

“For heaven’s sake, what’s the matter?”

“Did … you never … with Mom and Dad…?”

The cool weight of horror puddled in my stomach. “Oh. Good _gracious_. What kind of pervert do you think I am?! Honestly, Daniel, is _everything_ about procreating with you teens?”

“Pretty much,” came his nonchalant reply. I all but seethed, attempting to control my breathing and the iridescent blush of ectoplasm that was surely rising to my face. “Like it wasn’t when you were my age…”

“There’s a difference between being willing to do anything or be any _one_ to get what you want and wanting someone to want _you_ with all their mind and soul. A _big_ difference.”

He watched me for a long moment, looking startled. I realized that energy was radiating from my eyes and my fingertips and willed myself to be calm.

“Yeah,” Danny croaked, and while I heard him curling back in on himself, I couldn’t bring myself to look away from the sluggish haze of green drifting around us. “You’re right. Sorry.”

I couldn’t gather the enthusiasm to reply.


	4. Chapter 4

Time slowed to a halt.

The fog swirled around our prison, licking at the smooth barrier and creating intricate whorls and wisps. The empty howl of the ghost zone died down at some point - something I had never been still enough to notice before. My ears felt plugged when the eerie noise faded, and my head began pounding when the congested feeling wouldn’t go away. The hum of the forcefield rattled into my teeth and my ears again began ringing. I’m fairly certain that I spent some time with my head buried in my hands, muttering to myself and fighting to block out the excruciating buzzing of the Fenton Ghost Globe.

Sometimes the green mist outside moved so quickly that it felt like I was lost in some tiny pocket of space where time ceased to exist; like everything was moving and happening and passing by while I was immune to it. At others, nothing moved. Panic leapt into my throat and I quickly phased back into my human form to press a hand to my chest. My heartbeat felt faint and fluttery, but I counted the thumps, reassuring myself that the world around hadn’t screeched to a halt.

Freedom was less than an inch away. Cold and soupy and beautiful.

I had never wanted anything more than to be able to break through the barrier and _fly_.

It took what felt like hours to convince myself to collect my thoughts and breathe deeply. I looked at my rings and told myself what each was made of, what store they came from, and how much I paid. I rubbed the back of my neck until it stopped feeling like a block of concrete and tried to remember which investors I was meeting with for the rest of the week.

To think that I had only been missing from home for a few hours - that it was completely unlikely that an assistant would have tried to call or that Skulker would’ve appeared with some request - made my stomach seize with horror. But why would anybody be looking for me?

After all, I often went half a day without communicating with anyone.

“Vlad.”

Startled, I looked up to see Daniel hugging himself tightly, his eyes red and his bottom lip marred with ugly teeth marks.

“Vlad, I’m losing my mind.”

His brilliant green eyes stood out painfully against the swollen red and he shuddered as I watched him. A tiny sound slipped past his lips, faint and hoarse.

The anxiety that sent sharp stabs through my middle as I lifted my arm climbed into my throat and made my voice crack. “Just - for a minute - you should come here.”

A flicker of sanity passed through him, making his gaze narrow with suspicion. “No.”

“I’m serious. Just-”

“Are you crazy? Like I could possibly-”

“ _Come here_.”

Danny clamped his mouth shut and froze at my tone.

After a long moment, his lips parted once more with a shaky breath. He unwound from the ball he’d shriveled into and awkwardly pitched forward to crawl across the small space between us. The boy bumped against my side, cold blossoming from every point of contact, and I wrapped my arm around his lithe shoulders. Eventually I rested my hand on his bicep and gave him a small squeeze.

For a long while Daniel remained tense, his hair brushing against my collarbone, his arms rigid and wrapped tightly around his middle. “I want out of here,” he mumbled, his voice thrumming beneath my hand.

“I know, Daniel.” His body was freezing cold, and I concentrated some of my heat into the arm I had draped around him. “We’ll get out of this. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Mmmn.”

Silence settled over us and I became aware of my heartbeat thudding in my ears. He shifted against me, relaxing ever so slightly against my side.

“You suck, Vlad.”

The token insult caused a flare of amusement in my chest, momentarily interrupting the crawling anxiety that was steadily resurfacing beneath my thin veil of composure. “Thank you.”

Evidently, the pitiful attempt at witty banter was enough to satisfy his conscience. Daniel let out a shuddering breath and the tension drained from his limbs. The cold of his ghostly core seeped through my clothes like ice on a bruise. My heartbeat slowed, thumping hard in my throat.

The smell of the hazmat suit that had become his uniform was strangely soothing, and I found myself staring at his thick hair, amazed at the glossy sheen of each snow-white strand. Being this close to him without being Plasmius - without aiming an ecto-blast at his chest or having my hands around his throat - was completely bizarre.

It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t been this close to another human being in longer than I could remember.

The flash of light as he transformed into his human self startled me, and I gawked at him as he fell asleep in a matter of seconds.

Contact with another living being had a sudden, powerful effect on the terror lurking deep in my gut. Perhaps it was the rhythmic sound of Daniel’s breathing or the simple chill of his ice powers dulling my own fire, but the desperation grew quieter.

I watched my nemesis sleep, fascinated by his long eyelashes and his slender fingers. There were dark circles beneath his eyes and he flinched as his sleep deepened. Idly I wondered if the hum of the forcefield would be less maddening to non-ghost ears … the field itself _wa_ s designed to trap ghosts, after all…

Daniel twitched against me, fisting a hand in the fabric of my dress shirt and letting out a pained sound. What was he dreaming about? Samantha? The constant fear of a ghost lurking nearby?

Had fear and tension just become his default?

“Shhh.” The boy grunted when I rubbed his arm comfortingly, pressing his cheek against my shoulder. “You’re safe, little badger. Sleep. There will be plenty to worry about later.”

As I uttered my nickname for him, the boy’s grip tightened on my shirt and then loosened. I rubbed his arm until he stilled once more.

My skull thumped against the barrier and I stared upward at the darkness creeping overhead.

How long had we been here?

A day and a half? Four?

The projection of Jack’s face lit in my memory and I bit back a snarl. The complete, utter idiot.

So strange that such an imbecile could make someone so extraordinary.

Closing my eyes, I let out a long breath. Daniel’s fingers twitched against my side, and my stare eventually fell upon the device that buzzed maddeningly above us.

There was only one thought within reach, and I grasped onto it and cemented it in my mind.

No matter what, I could _not_ let my sanity begin to slip again.

The ghost zone was silent and the hum of the forcefield drilled into my aching teeth, and I closed my eyes once more, willing myself to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

“Seven times nine.”

“Sixty-three.”

“Eight times four?”

“Uh, thirty-two.”

“Twelve times six.”

“ _What?_ ”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Twelve times six.”

The ghost boy gave a groan of annoyance, throwing himself back against the curved wall. “What’s up with all the twelves?!”

Sighing heavily, I pinched the bridge of my nose in attempt to dull the throb behind it. “You _have_ passed fourth-grade math, haven’t you?”

A good while before, I had awoken to a startled noise and felt a sudden absence of weight not long after that. I’d opened my eyes to find Daniel edging away, resting when he had put a few inches between us. He rubbed his arms and looked lost in thought. The lack of hysteria I took as a good sign.

Not long after, I allowed myself a long, thorough stretch, then nudged the boy into a hesitant conversation.

Not long after _that_ , I discovered that Danny’s knowledge of multiplication tables was abysmal.

“ _Yes_ ,” he drawled. “But why do you keep doing twelves?!”

“Many things in our society are measured, sold, and grouped in twelves, dear boy. Don’t you have to measure things in feet and inches?”

The raven-haired boy shrugged. “Well, Dad’s seven feet tall. I just picture a bunch of Dads end-to-end and guess.”

Good _Lord_.

“Hey.” The boy’s tone was placating, almost desperate. “Can’t we keep our minds sharp with something other than math?”

“All right, Daniel.” I sighed, removing my fingers from where they kneaded at my head. “What loosely-educational subject would you like to discuss?”

“Uhhh … English, maybe?”

The teen’s big, blue eyes were fixed on me as I attempted to decide what to quiz him on. Despite being shaken by waking up against me, he actually seemed to be much calmer and more optimistic now; almost incredibly so. I smoothed my jacket for the hundredth time where it was folded in my lap, the annoyance at having creased it a distant tug on my mind.

When I met his brilliant gaze Danny blinked owlishly at me. “How much do you know about classic literature?”

“Probably … not as much as I should.” He ran a hand through his messy hair sheepishly.

“Let’s see if your memorization skills are any more honed in the study of theatre,” I decided, ignoring the flinch of horror and the protest that he opened his mouth to make. “How many of Shakespeare’s plays can you name off the top of your head?”

A look of utter misery came over his features. “You can’t be serious.”

I crossed my arms and glowered at him.

“Ugh. Okay, okay, fine. Um, A Summer Midnight’s Dream, maybe, Romeo and Juliet … that’s the ‘to be or not to be’ one, right?”

I put my head in my hands and let out a howl of utter frustration.

Frozen, Daniel gawked at me. “O…kay, so it’s not that one.”

“No,” I responded faintly, “no it isn’t.”

“Vlad- look-” He let out a breath, gesturing defensively.  “That stuff just doesn’t appeal to me. I mean, Shakespeare’s this immortal superstar, but his plays and books or whatever aren’t all that great.”

“Well then, what kind of entertainment _does_ appeal to you?”

“I don’t know! Like, funny stuff. I know Shakespeare _tries_ to be funny, but I like modern stuff. I’m a kid; I don’t have the attention span for things that are so long they need an intermission.”

“Am I to assume that you’re watching crass, plotless comedies instead of doing your homework?”

“ _No_.” I gave the boy a skeptical look. He stretched his legs out and frowned at his scuffed tennis shoes. “If you actually spied on me like you said you do, you’d know that I don’t have any time for watching movies. The only thing I read on my own time is the stupid jokes Tucker sends me.” He glanced at me then, an oddly earnest look on his face. “Wanna hear some?”

“Please, no.”

“No, I’m serious. They’re mostly really dumb but hilarious. Wanna hear one?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“Even a fruitloop like you can't not find this hilarious."

“I highly doubt that, Daniel.”

“So what do you call a woman with no arms or legs when she’s rolling around on the ground?”

I attempted with all my might to die spontaneously. It didn’t work. The teenager was grinning, his shoulders shaking in his attempt to keep from laughing.

“What do you call a-”

“I heard your question; I simply refuse to acknowledge it.”

He barely managed to speak through his own snickering. “ _Peggy_ ,” he squeaked.

My hands smacked to my face for the hundredth time. “How did I ever consider you a formidable threat?”

“Listen! Are you listening?”

“No.”

Completely undeterred by my disgust, the teen giggled maniacally. “Okay, okay. Two cannibals are eating a clown.” He paused, forcing himself to breathe deeply. “One says to the other: _‘Does this taste funny to you?’_ ”

There was a moment of blessed silence during which we stared at each other, equally wide-eyed. Daniel exploded into a fit of undignified giggles as I began to question everything I held of value.

“I’m sorry.” He wiped a tear from his eye, nearly vibrating with a childlike giddiness I hadn’t the slightest idea how to deal with. “He messages me stupid jokes every time he knows I have a test to cram for. I can’t tell if he’s trying to help or if he’s distracting me on purpose.”

“Remind me to update Mister Foley’s incompetence level in my files,” I groaned, only half-sarcastic.

“Come on. If you laughed every once-in-a-while, maybe you wouldn’t be so bitter and angry all the time.”

“My dear boy, if I-”

“Shhh!”

Surprised at his sheer audacity, I snapped my mouth shut. The urge to shoot him with lasers from my eyes was overwhelming, but I refrained, worried that they might bounce off the forcefield and hit me instead.

“This one is really morbid! You’ll appreciate it.” I glared at him as he crossed his legs and sucked in a breath in preparation. “A woman wakes up in a hospital, moves around a little, and shouts, ‘Doctor, doctor! I can’t feel my legs!’ The doctor hurries in and goes, ‘It’s okay! That’s because I removed your arms.’”

The feeling that welled up in me was completely foreign. It filled my stomach and lifted through my chest, sweeping up into my head and making me snort. I covered my mouth with the back of my hand. _I was grinning_.

The rush of endorphins from something other than sadism - it had been over a decade…

Beside me, Fenton’s chiming laughter had drowned out my own. “I bet Shakespeare would’ve liked that one. His stuff is all so dark.”

“Perhaps.”

“Okay, okay. One more then I’ll shut up.” He paused, exhaling and collecting himself. “What do you call a fish with no eyes?”

I bit down on my tongue, commanding myself to be expressionless. His grin bloomed and erupted into snickers. It took all of my willpower to look disgusted.

 He clapped a hand over his mouth but a sputter of laughter managed to escape. "D-do you know?"

"No."

He made a noise like an untied balloon. "You don't know it?!"

"No."

He squeezed his eyes shut. “ _A fshhh_.”

It happened before I could stop it. The utter stupidity of it had me holding onto my sides as a shocked and delighted high-pitched laugh bubbled up from my chest. It was so, inexcusably absurd... Daniel’s own cackle was as loud as mine, filling up the air and drowning out the dull hum of the forcefield’s energy.

Gasping for breath, my diaphragm pulsing with the sudden ache, I pressed the back of a finger to my eye to keep it from watering. “For heaven’s sake, that better be the last one, Mad-”

I bit my lip, staring at the place between us.

_Oh my God_.

“I swear!” Danny was still laughing, clutching his heaving stomach. “That was the last one, I swear.”

The music of his laughter faded away while I was lightheaded, heart having leapt into my throat. Greenish mist swirled sluggishly past us and I swallowed thickly.

_Get it together, Masters_.

It came back to me in a rush - who had last caught me so off-guard with an absurd joke; who Daniel’s laughter belonged to. Despite never having shared this ease with the smaller halfa before, it was nearly effortless to fall into.

“See?” Daniel smiled, pulling his shoulders together in a fleeting moment of sheepishness. “If you laughed more, Plasmius, you’d probably live longer.”

“Giving your arch-enemy advice? You’d better be careful, little badger.”

“Eh.” He leaned back against the pale glow of the forcefield. I cocked an eyebrow at him. “I’m not too worried.” My gaze drifted into the distance, following the languid, sweeping energy where it faded into black nothingness. I felt microscopic; like the globe encasing us was the size of a water droplet or a plant cell. Pragmatism and careful, indifferent control were slipping away and being replaced by a clear, childlike wonder. The present and my immediate surroundings had gained control of my mind. Without the ability to run my companies, my few servants, and my secret lab, all that remained was my ability to simply be.

It was terrifying and liberating.

“I’m hungry,” the boy grumbled.

When I looked up at him, he too was watching the fog swirl endlessly below. “Unlike me, you can’t feed off the misery of pubescent minors.” A charming glare was thrown my way. “You should - what do you call it? - ‘go ghost.’ It will postpone those little problems.”

“I _know_ ,” he insisted. Rings of light flitted over his form a moment later.

I turned my gaze away to hide my smile, and we fell into silence once more.


	6. Chapter 6

“I’m hungry.”

It was the third time in the past hour that Daniel had informed me of this.

“If you were to _stay_ in your ghost form, you wouldn’t have this issue. You might have noticed that ghosts do not eat.”

“I know … it’s just uncomfortable. I’ll never understand how my parents run around in these things all day.” He phased back into his snowy-haired self, and it struck me that he almost always threw out his silly catchphrase before switching forms. Had I ever seen him transform without announcing it before we’d gotten trapped here?

When I realized that many of the things that had happened before our capture were becoming a blur as if out of a previous life, the nervous ache in my gut clenched painfully. _This is normal_ , I told myself yet again. _A psychological response like this is typical in unexpected instances of long-term confinement._

Another realization that hadn’t come to me without alarm was that I had never been Plasmius for more than a few hours at a time. The first time the boy had complained of his hunger, it occurred to me that it was probably past time for my mid-afternoon meal back at home. Whether it was all in my head or not, my own belly had begun to burble its complaints. I changed back into my own ghost form to put the demands of the human condition on an indefinite hold, then stayed a ghost for a period of time that I’d long since given up on measuring. The longer I existed blue-skinned, my tongue making the occasional pass over my temporary fangs, the more natural it felt. It was much like floating in water for so long that the thought of climbing back out and existing outside of its slow, heavy sway seemed almost impossible.

Could my ghost form be overtaking my human self as time went by?

_Oh, butter biscuits_ , I’d cursed to myself; _if only I could study this with all the equipment in my lab…_

Yet another example of how having another halfa around would allow me to do research that was impossible on my own.

I found myself watching his awkward movements as Danny peeled off his white gloves, tossing them aside and moving to unzip the high neck of the hazmat suit. “I realize the fashion statement I’m probably making isn’t a good one,” he muttered, exposing a groove of pale flesh that extended down past the dip of his collarbone. The battle to push the suit’s tight sleeves up took him a good while. He opted for kicking off his boots too, and he stared at his feet in a daze and flexed his toes at their newfound freedom. It was odd to see how snugly the protective material of the suit clung to his calves and his ankles. Almost … indecent.

“I’ve seen worse,” I commented in an attempt at helpfulness. “Far worse.” It seemed smarter not to vocalize the fact that the image that sprung to mind was of Jack’s wardrobe in college.

The boy exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. Startled, I watched as he absentmindedly floated upward, his skull clanking softly against the roof of the globe.

“So Skulker isn’t going to come looking for you.”

“No; it’s highly unlikely he’d have found what I sent him out for yet.”

Despite having articulated this half a dozen times before, it was oddly easy to be patient. I stared at him as he crossed his arms and pouted.

“Would the Dairy King come looking for you?”

I snorted.

“Hey, it was worth a shot.”

A small smile came, unbidden, to my face. I rested my jaw in the palm of one hand. “What about your loved ones, Daniel? You’re positive that no one will come looking for you?”

Even if his two best friends came looking for him, this was a location that Daniel had never been to before, eliminating the possibility that the trio had it mapped out. Even if they simply drove aimlessly out into the murk, we were so far off-course that the chances of them coming across us were miniscule at best. I wasn’t sure why I’d asked, other than that I enjoyed the newfound civility between us and the familiar ring of his voice.

The teenager sighed, letting his arms hang loosely. Long, slender fingers dangled in front of my face. “Mom and Dad would run around the whole town yelling for me before thinking to check through the ghost portal … it was … morning. It was morning when I left. They usually don’t even stop working for lunch.” He sniffed, smiling fondly. His brows twitched and it took him a moment to speak again. “So I don’t talk to them often during the day.”

His radiant green eyes burned greener for a second before he blinked back the ectoplasmic tears that had risen in them.

“And Sam and Tucker … I don’t think they’ll notice if I don’t talk to them for a day.”

My head cocked to the side and I frowned. Based on the information I’d gathered from my spying, Daniel and his friends were inseparable. “Oh, little badger. Is your greatness too much for them to handle?”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” he replied softly. His legs had disappeared in favor of his ghostly tail, which undulated rhythmically in the cool air. I flicked at a dangling finger disinterestedly and he batted my hand away. Perhaps his breakup with Miss Manson created a rift in the group … or could being a halfa be having the same isolating effects on him as they had on me?

Clearly not caring to dwell on his little friends, the boy met my stare. “Isn't your suit uncomfortable?”

Surprised, I blinked at him. “Not at all.”

“Not even that stupid collar?”

“My dear boy, I don't expect you to understand my flair for elegance. And no, no it isn't.”

“What's up with your…” He snorted, then went on. “… _elegant_ outfit anyway? Did the accident happen on Halloween or something?”

A sneer leapt to my face before I could stop it. “ _No_. For your information, I was wearing my usual attire when your father's incompetence ruined my life.”

“Oh. That's ... really weird.”

Sighing, I shrugged. “I suppose it could be linked to the conditions surrounding our accidents ... we were young and had less data to work with when I was affected, while your parents' portal was far better designed.”

“I guess so.” The other halfa grinned at me. “I have to say, I'm glad my ghost half doesn’t have a drugstore Dracula wig for hair.”

“You-! How dare you, you little brat!”

Before I could think, I’d leapt to my feet, shoving my face into the teen’s and releasing a blast of energy from my eyes. Daniel yelped and dove beneath me as blinding light filled the globe and knocked me backward.

Light flittered before me. The dull sound of Daniel’s voice grew until his cursing became intelligible. A strand of hair had fallen over my face, and it appeared to be singed.

“…you fucking _fruitloop_ ,” he snarled, and my vision cleared just in time to see Daniel draw back a bare hand and throw a ball of energy directly into my chest.

This was the one time in my existence that I will admit to screaming like a girl.

Awareness crept in, my first sight being Daniel splayed against the far side of the forcefield. Dull alarm began to well in my stomach. His lips were parted and one arm was thrown across his chest, and the snowy-white hair was blown back from his face in all directions. Breathing hurt.

Attempting to use my limbs failed miserably and I groaned as the smooth plane of the forcefield sent throbbing pain through my shoulder blades and tailbone. I squinted in wonder at what appeared to be one of the teenager’s gloves where it sat on my stomach.

Daniel coughed and immediate anxiety sent me struggling through the pain to push myself up. The air I sucked down my throat felt like it was full of knives, but I managed to get into a sitting position. The cursed device was still completely intact around us.

“I-” The boy descended into a coughing fit, and the pain that filled his expression stamped out the last remaining traces of self-righteous anger in my head. His final cough ended in a chuckle, his small smile more of a grimace. “I think we need to sit down and have a discussion about the definition of the word ‘truce,’ Plasmius.”

His eyes fluttered open and he grinned lopsidedly. I snickered. “Perhaps.”

The boy shifted suddenly and his eyes went wide, his weight beginning to pull him down the wall. His jumpsuit made a shrill, squeegee-like sound that didn’t end until he slid to a stop at the bottom. His expression was of horror and disbelief.

He burst out laughing just as I did.

When I finally caught my breath, he was still laughing - musical cackles punctuated by hoarse gasps. The sound made my chest feel near to bursting. It was the laugh I had spent countless days of my youth trying to coax from Maddie, and yet, from him it was somehow … better.

Daniel sighed, his arms draped loosely over his stomach. His gaze held mine for a moment before turning toward the device above. The crooked grin faded as I watched, reforming into a careful blank. Worry swam in his expressive pupils. As quickly as it had dissipated, the thick swell of anxiety returned.

The low howl of the ghost zone picked up around us and I struggled to estimate out how much longer this would last.


	7. Chapter 7

I awoke from a sleep so deep it felt like death.

My limbs felt numb and heavy, and my head buzzed with dreams that were so vivid I could taste them. Yet as the relentless hum of the forcefield drilled through and I became aware of the pale light leaking through my eyelids, I couldn’t remember a single detail.

Long before I realized I was awake, I was aware of a scent both fragrant and musky, reaching me on icy puffs of air. I hummed with contentment.

Daniel hummed back.

Jolting awake, I scrambled away. Danny made an irritated sound and rolled onto his back. He was giving me a look that was very displeased and very much awake.

I wondered how long we’d been pressed together. Horror knotted in my stomach - hard coils of dread and embarrassment that sent a rush of hot ectoplasm to my face and the tips of my ears. The next question was even more bizarre: how long had he been awake without moving to put any space between us, and for God’s sake, _why?_

“Did you sleep well, Plasmius? I know old men really need their rest, but dang.”

Plastering a convincing smirk onto my face, I smoothed the fabric of my ghostly clothes. “I should thank _you_ for that, my dear boy. It would appear that you make a better pillow than a hero.”

“Pffft.” He leveled an unamused stare at me as he sat up. He proceeded to stretch in a catlike manner, letting out an undignified sound, and I looked around, feeling a bit better at having returned his customary insult.

Everything was maddeningly the same: nothingness for endless miles save for the sluggish swirl of ghostly mist. The device above us seemed to be whirring more loudly, as if low on electricity or fuel. The thrumming was fluctuating now, its momentary buzzes louder and the pauses between them longer by milliseconds. It whooshed through my limbs like a superhuman heartbeat and buffeted my ears to the extent that I felt too disoriented to stand up.

Silence stretched between us so smoothly that I wasn’t aware of it until it was broken.

“Hey, Vlad?”

“Hm?”

“I-I'm sorry about what I said before.” Daniel hung his head, staring somewhere indeterminate below us. “About kids being as sex-obsessed back then as they are now. I assumed you were a total pervert and I shouldn't have. You're evil. _And_ crazy.”

I scowled at him.

“But that was really lame. I'm always assuming things and that makes me ... kind of an idiot. I should know my enemy instead of jumping to conclusions that could get me in serious trouble later on.”

“Very perceptive, Daniel. Learning to make no assumptions about your adversaries is crucial if you ever hope to defeat them. How would _you_ like it if I assumed your every action was dictated by your hormones just because of your age?”

Phantom snorted. “You’d be wrongly assuming that I had the time, for one.” He pressed his fingertips idly into his neck and shoulders, massaging away the stiffness his human mind fabricated. I wondered if the unspoken statement was that he had been too busy to spend any time with Miss Manson … no, that wasn’t a sufficient explanation for their breakup; she had gladly accompanied him on all of his heroic escapades…

“Ah, to be young, awkward, and inexperienced,” I drawled fondly. Thinking back, I frowned. I didn’t have any fond memories of the time at all.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Daniel muttered tiredly. “Danny Fenton: can defeat ultra-powerful, centuries-old ghosts without breaking a sweat but can barely work up the nerve to kiss the girl who’s been into him for months.”

Frowning, I blinked at him. “Are you referring to Valerie or Samantha?”

He pressed his face into his hands. “Both.” After a while, self-consciousness overcame him and he shot me a sidelong glance. “What? You’re not seriously going to give me grief about it, are you?”

I raised my hands defensively. “Why would you think such a thing?”

The wary expression morphed into a sly one, and he straightened up. “I expected you to give one of your speeches about how it’s just another example of us being more alike than I realize.”

I huffed. “Very funny, Daniel.”

“Stupid, I know.” He stretched out, his back resting at the lowest point of the forcefield and his arms flopping out to either side. His hip bumped one of his boots, set neatly beside his gloves that lay on top of my folded-up suit jacket. When had _that_ happened? Had I done it? I couldn’t remember. “With your money, you can have just about anybody you want.”

“Not exactly,” I murmured, surprised by my own honesty.

“Hmmm.” He lifted one lean arm, stretching his fingers toward the little disc whirring maddeningly above us. He wiggled the long digits, and it suddenly occurred to me that there were six, then four. Eventually he managed to create another forearm that branched from the original at the elbow before growling in frustration and letting his form return to normal. A smile found its way onto my face as I watched him struggle. As talented as he was, he only required a bit more discipline and he’d be replicating fully in no time…

With the squirming, swimming feeling of molecules doubling themselves, I split myself in two. “Concentration, my dear boy,” I said in stereo, and the teenager jumped, looking over at me with enormous eyes. “All you lack is proper concentration.”

In the span of a second, a hundred emotions flickered over his face. He forced his features into a neutral expression, then said, “That’s two Vlads too many.”

“Nonsense,” I insisted from one mouth, then from the other: “It’s a hundred too few!”

“How can you make your double say different things?”

“It’s a bit like ventriloquism,” I responded, focusing my speech to come from my left self. “With practice, you’ll be doing the same soon.”

Danny looked away, gaze not even registering the flickering wall of electricity between us and freedom. “I still don't know how I'm supposed to take your compliments.”

“Don't think of them as compliments, then. I'm merely making observations about your potential.”

He snorted. “Me? Potential? That's how I know you're nuts.”

Frowning, I looked up at the machine above us. It hummed innocently down at me, its lens winking as it emitted energy. My skin crawled and the hushed voice of claustrophobic panic rose in the back of my mind, babbling frantically. I swallowed, commanding myself to focus.

The boy continued to fume silently, limbs spread out as if mid-snow angel, and I observed the rise and fall of his chest as I turned the facts I’d gathered over and over in my head. I tried to decide whether his newfound pessimism had caused his little breakup or if the reverse was true, and how best to keep him calm and opening up to me. The world shifted and crept around us and the inhuman wind howled somewhere far away.

After a long, long while, I pulled my gloves off and folded them neatly beside me, then put a hand before my face, concentrating ectoplasm into my fingertips.

The globe winked into existence, its surface soft where it made contact with my fingertips. I willed it upward, then flicked it away with my wrist.

The pinkish bubble meandered through the air before drifting downwards toward the sulking teenager. For a moment, I wondered if he would even notice it.

Daniel grunted, turning his gaze upward when the reddish glow came into his line of sight. “Uh - aaaugh!” He attempted to squirm away absurdly before the ectobubble came to a rest on his chest. He stared at it, wide-eyed, and with a clench of my hand, it popped. He yelped in surprise.

“Vlad-” He gazed up at me, a charming look of confusion on his features. “What are you-”

He trailed off upon seeing the myriad of bubbles hovering above us. I focused a bit more energy and created another, willing it into suspension. It drifted lazily through the air, mingling with the others.

“How are you doing that - stop it!” He flinched away when one of the tiny spheres popped on his cheek.

“Concentrate power into your fingertips as you would when preparing to fire a blast, then refine it to a low level,” I explained. “Envision a bubble.”

Danny frowned comically at me, then turned his concentration toward the ectobubbles hovering on the air currents within our prison.

I lost myself watching the boy struggle to duplicate my creations. He spent a while shooting sparks from his hand and grumbling at his lack of control. The bubbles jostled around as he released bursts of green light before finding the slow circle they had been drifting in once more. After what felt like half an hour, Daniel was creating popping electricity that flashed in a wide sphere, swearing and jerking back upon creating exceptionally large sparks.

In an equal amount of time, half a dozen green bubbles of varying sizes had joined my own.

Phantom stuck his index finger in the air, making the sound of gunfire and launching a tiny, glowing sphere from his finger. He laughed triumphantly when it collided with one of my own, causing both to pop. I realized that a smile of amazement had spread across my face. In an hour, he’d surpassed me at something I’d begun doing years ago.

“Daniel.”

“Huh? _Jesus!_ ”

I blew a cloud of pinkish bubbles at the boy, chuckling as he batted them away. He retaliated by sending a flock of his own glowing spheres at my head, laughing at me when I was unable to bat them all away successfully. The few that popped on my skin were like puffs of winter air.

“Can all of our fights just be like this from now on?”

He flinched as one of the remaining bubbles floated down near his head, fizzling out of existence upon contact with the forcefield beneath.

“But what about all of my ingenious plans?” I crossed my arms. “There are so many you’ve yet to see.”

“But … bubbles!” He grinned, only the slightest hint of embarrassment slipping through.

“I suppose, little badger,” I uttered, and he blinked at me in near-disbelief. “But only if there’s nobody around to witness it. It would be … compromising for the Wisconsin Ghost to be seen participating in such an absurd form of combat.”

“It would be compromising for me, too,” he retorted.

“If anyone _took_ you seriously, yes.”

I wasn’t expecting the bright green bubble that rocketed into my face, and I let out an undignified shout when it popped in my eye.

His delighted laughter was almost worth it.


	8. Chapter 8

“So you were in paranormal studies and … _meta_ physics?” The boy had been picking at a spot on the leg of his suit. He asked it out of nowhere, after a long, easy silence, without looking up at me.

_Oh._ It drifted back to me as if a memory from centuries before. “Yes.”

“What is it, exactly?”

A question I hadn’t been asked in a very long time. It was a horribly tedious thing to explain, yet his pensive gaze compelled me to answer.

“Metaphysics is the study of what cannot be studied. It’s where physics and philosophy meet, one could say.”

“Okay.” He rested his chin on his arms, which were rested on his knees. “I feel like I know _less_ about it than I did before I asked.”

“Patience; I can’t explain what I spent half a decade studying in a single sentence.” He pouted. “It is the discipline of defining and studying the things in the universe that aren’t tangible or physically measurable.”

“Things liiike…”

“Technically, they’re referred to as ‘truths.’ Time is a fitting example. Its existence is obvious, yet because it isn’t something man can harness, philosophers and scientists struggle to define it. Truth, passion, justice … civilizations that never mix will all recognize these concepts despite the fact that they don’t have a physical presence.”

“Ohhh.” Danny blinked at me owlishly. “If it’s all about vague things, how do you get a job in it?”

“Most metaphysicians become authors and professors in the subject. Some become spiritual counselors, though that doesn’t help dispel the idea that we’re not true scientists.”

“Metaphysicians.” He tried the word, the gears in his head turning audibly. “So if everything had gone the way you planned, would you be a professor?”

I nodded. “Probably.”

“Oh man. You’d be a total slave-driver.” He smiled as he imagined it, eyes flashing mischievously. A proud smirk spread across my face.

“What about you, my dear? You’ll be graduating before you know it. What kind of careers are you considering?”

The boy grimaced, looking up at me. “I don’t know. I have so little time to myself that I hardly ever spend it planning for the future. I always wanted to be an astronaut, but with my grades, that’s a pipe dream.”

“You should set some time aside to think about it, Daniel.” The look he gave me was weary yet knowing, and a voice in the back of my head wondered if his parents had even halted their ghost hunting long enough to give him this lecture. “Being a hero won’t pay the bills, and you shouldn’t put it off until you’ve stumbled into a job that you’re not passionate about.”

Remaining silent, the snowy-haired boy looked away. He looked so small as he faced me, curled into a tangle of long, awkward limbs. He sighed softly.

“Think about it. What _do_ you want?”

Daniel chuckled bitterly. “That’s the last thing I want to think about.”

I cocked my head to the side, frowning. “Why on earth would you say that?”

“Trust me.” He unraveled himself, sitting up straight and fixing me in a hard-headed stare. “You don’t want to know.”

“Yes, Daniel, I most certainly _do_.” I glared back, crossing my arms over my chest. He snorted, rearranging himself so his feet were underneath him and his weight shifted forward onto his knees.

“Fine,” he muttered, licking his lips, and his voice sounded almost shaky. “You asked.”    

He put his weight on his hands and leaned forward until his immense pupils were all I saw. My stomach dropped through the floor.

Danny drew in a sharp breath and pressed his lips against mine.

It lasted barely a second, his icy breath flooding my senses as his mouth closed minutely over my own. A million thoughts assaulted me simultaneously and yet my mind went completely blank.

The soft lips separated from mine and he drew back, his expression shockingly composed. I stared into his eyes uselessly.

I managed to form a thought and it rattled up my throat.

“How … how long have you wanted to do that?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured, swallowing thickly. “A while.”

“Oh.”

A wave of either nausea or arousal rose up inside me though I couldn’t tell which, and I put my head in my hands.


	9. Chapter 9

“Vlad.”

“No.”

“Tell me what you're thinking.”

“ _No._ ”

I breathed in deep to quiet the screaming of ectoplasm in my head. A deep, thick whorl of heat blossomed within the shock, sending a shudder through my frame that I doubt I managed to hide.

Even though it was gravely unwise, I looked up.

Daniel's eyes were swirling with energy and his shoulders sagged with exhaustion. I could feel the desperate churning despite the space between us; the weary, miserable need that makes existing nearly unbearable.

It had been days since we'd been caught and he’d had no privacy and little physical contact … how I had overlooked this possibility was beyond me.

“Vlad…” He leaned forward a little, his voice aching and melodious. It made such heat tear through me that the urge to move was unbearable and I shifted slightly. I’d covered my face with a hand as if the barrier between us would be of any use.

“I’m thinking,” I murmured, though any and all ideas of how to fix this were crashing together and being lost in the roar of adrenaline and interrupted by the lingering taste of his mouth.

“Just listen, please-”

I caught the pale fingers that had brushed my knee before realizing I was moving. I stared at his hand in my own blue one, then up at his anguished expression. I didn’t trust my body to do what I wanted and held still, not releasing him.

“Do you realize what you’re doing, boy?”

His luminous eyes shone angrily. “ _Clearly_.”

“And do you, by _any_ chance, realize how difficult it is at your age to be rational in regard to the person whom you-”

“You asked me what I wanted.”

Arousal thumped through my veins and his hand twitched within my grip. Slowly, I released him, and his hand fell to his side, clenching and unclenching. He was still leaning forward on his knees.

My eyes wandered over his face: his sharp jawline, his ghostly pale lips, his heavy eyes and his strong brows.

Exhilaration and something very dark burned in my stomach and in my head, and I forced myself to shut my eyes and let out a long, slow breath. I swallowed thickly, was still for a long moment, then looked at him once more.

Daniel’s face was cool against my palm. His eyes fluttered closed and he let out a chilly, faint breath, expression becoming pained.

“You’re making this far too easy, you know.” I drew my thumb over his bottom lip, pulling him forward. Behind his parted lips, his tongue moved in response to the contact.

“Shut up,” he replied breathlessly.

I grinned. “If you insist.”

A shudder raced through him when our mouths met, ghost energy radiating off of his frame like the flicker of a dull light. He pressed closer when I released him, the brief loss of contact too much, and when I ran my tongue over the break in his lips, his hands fisted in the fabric of my cape. His tongue moved to meet my own as he pushed between my legs, his firm stomach warming as it met mine, and I didn’t think I’d ever been as aroused in my life.

“You’re shaking,” I observed, sucking in a breath. Danny’s fingertips dug into my shoulder blades as he looked up at me. His pupils had all but swallowed his irises.

“So are you.”

“Brat,” I sneered, embarrassed. He chuckled breathlessly.

When our mouths met yet again Daniel writhed, his grip becoming clawing as he made a soft noise against my teeth. I found his hips with my hands and held him still, attempting to keep myself just short of the line between sanity and losing all control. He hissed in protest and a predatory grin spread across my face.

“Vl-aaah-”

Gripping his snowy hair, I pulled his head gingerly to the side. The cords stood out in his neck and he squeezed his eyes shut as he shuddered in anticipation.

How strange it was to hold him in my arms.

To see him eagerly offering parts of himself that he had always ferociously protected from me.

I savored the intoxicating smell of his skin, exhaling and feeling him squirm against me before pressing my lips to the spot beneath his ear.

The noise he made had me mind-numbingly hard in an instant. I ran my tongue over the flesh and sucked hard, refusing to relinquish my hold on his scalp and his hip despite his struggles. His strong hands dug into my back hard enough to bruise, and for the first time, I welcomed it. I let go of his hair to pull the collar of his jumpsuit out of my way and moved down, absorbing the almost static-like feel of his power as it leapt through his skin and over my tongue.

When I sank my teeth into the base of his neck I loosened my hold on his hip. Immediately I was rewarded by a hoarse shout and the grinding of his hips against me. Luminescent ectoplasm pooled under my lips, and as I licked it soothingly from the tiny punctures, he pressed his arousal into me and I realized that this could quite possibly be the farthest that the boy had ever gone with another living being. My rival … my counterpart.

The only other.

I pushed my thumbs under the material of his jumpsuit and shoved it off of his shoulders, latching onto his porcelain skin just over his collarbone. His groan was equal parts anxious and relieved and he wriggled it off of his arms and his chest. A startled sound escaped me when he hooked his legs over mine, forcing himself into my lap and bringing his face nearly level with my own. The developing muscles of his back were cool under my fingers. His own ghost-blood still lingered in my mouth as his tongue ran across mine, so sweet that I allowed myself a low, indulgent moan against his lips.

“Vlad.”

The poor thing was so terrified that I could hear the shaking in his voice. I traced my fingertips admiringly along his spine, gazing into his eyes. The fact that my moving hands were doing little to aid his concentration made it all the more enjoyable. I slid my fingertips just beneath where his jumpsuit still clung to his hips, feeling the bony space below his tailbone. Danny’s eyes glazed over and he gasped sharply and rocked into me. I commanded myself against all odds to maintain control.

“What is it, love?”

“Mnh - I want this gone.” His hooded gaze moved down to the clasps that held my cape in place and then my belt. Shaking hands released fistfuls of my clothing, giving me room to move. When I began to unfasten my cape, his hazy stare dropped back to my waist and he fumbled with my belt before undoing the buckle.

I let out a breath as I nudged him back and moved to pull my tunic off, and the slow twitch of his cock against my thigh and the look of helpless awe on his face as I cast it aside was too much.

With a rush of desire, I placed a hand on his bare chest and shoved him against the floor of our prison. Danny fell back willingly, his breath bumped out of him by the impact. I shoved my pants down and discarded them, and as my attention returned to his pretty eyes and his heaving chest, the gears once again began turning in his head and he moved to peel the rest of his clothing off. His squirming sent a thick wave of impatience through my core. I dug a hand into the fabric, yanking it away from his hips, and the snug resistance of the suit pulled him under me. He gasped sharply and his brilliant eyes hovered blearily on my face as my gaze raked over his quivering form.

This was far better than anything I’d had planned.

The lewd noise he made when I grazed my fangs across his stomach had me growling with delight and the muffled whine as I ran my tongue over the small space between his pectorals was so arousing that my power flared sharply, audibly buffeting the air around us. His slender fingers gripped the back of my neck and tangled in my hair.

“Oh, Daniel.” I grinned at the little shudder that went through him at my mouth shaping his name. He blinked at me, dazed. I realized I could see the frost on his breath as he panted. “Could this be the day that you have finally run out of snarky insults? You haven’t said … anything _coherent_ in a while.”

Anger flickered in his stare, making his eyes glow as his face flushed the same hue. Watching the slow transition between incoherent need and being able to think was another fascinating reminder that I was the one lucky enough to witness his first descent into pleasure at the hands of another being.

“Sh-shut it, Plasmius,” he retorted weakly. Funny how having him naked and pitifully hard beneath me took the venom out of his words.

Leaning close, I let myself admire his flushed, glistening lips before making eye contact. “Make me.”

Teeth dug into my bottom lip and his arms slipped over my shoulders as if he were trying to see how far down my spine he could reach before dragging his fingertips back up in slow, deep strokes. His tongue pressed past my teeth to taste the roof of my mouth. Through the haze, I tried to keep from catching him with my canines while greedily running my hands all over his skinny, beautifully toned body. Any uncertainty was lost now to his desire to outdo me and his fierce writhing proved it.

I gripped his arousal while he was distracted and he keened, curling in on himself and giving me space to lick the sensitive spot behind his ear.

“V-Vlad I - fffuck. Don’t-”

Withdrawing from the bruise I was sucking into his flesh, I quirked an eyebrow at the boy. I tugged down his straining length, twisting my wrist when I reached the soft skin just under the head, and Danny howled and arched off the floor.

This was _definitely_ the farthest he’d gone with anyone.

“Oh,” I murmured, his shudder at my voice fueling my confidence. “Of course. Too soon for it to be all over, hmmm?” Concentrating warm, liquid ectoplasm out of my hand, I smeared my thumb along the underside of his length. When he jumped and let out a whine I tightened my grip, holding back the orgasm that Danny was surely on the cusp of.

“I … ah … _mmmn_.” I grinned at the pathetic attempt at a retort and shifted my weight to my knees before focusing more slickness out of my other hand. His vibrant, hooded gaze was dazed from the sudden pressure on his cock, his lips parted and flushed and horribly sexy.

When I lowered my unoccupied hand to gingerly cup his balls the boy hissed and jerked, slapping a palm to the buzzing floor and pressing the other into my shoulder for anchorage. I massaged the superheated flesh and a squirming shudder wormed its way up his spine. Teeth clamped down on his bottom lip, his face morphing into a pained attempt at control. The lovely buzz of his power electrifying the air chilled my skin and I slid my middle finger lower.

Danny’s teeth digging into his lip muffled his shout. I maintained my ministrations, gingerly teasing his entrance and the thousands of nerve endings that lie beneath it while keeping reassuring pressure on the base of his cock.

“Ahhh … ngh.” The boy jumped and squeezed my shoulder harder. His brows knitted together and his Adam’s apple fluttered as he struggled to suppress the startled, throaty sounds rising within him at the teasing circles I traced around his opening. His chest heaved and his thighs shook, all so pale and wiry and _beautiful_.

“Daniel…” The visible shiver that raced through him at my voice made a painful ache thud through me. “It’s going to hurt.”

When his radiant eyes fluttered open, I thought that he finally realized the ramifications of his actions, that he had changed his mind and would shove me off.

He slid a shaking hand down, gripped my own, and pushed my wandering finger inside him.


	10. Chapter 10

Remembering the beginning is difficult.

As pragmatic as I pride myself on being, our conflict has been so delightful, so maddening, so utterly and entirely consuming that it has faded to a blur, a distant backdrop to the sporadic battles the boy and I settled into.

The reunion I planned, the carefully concealed attempt to insert myself back into Maddie and Jack’s lives, meeting their bright, if naïve, daughter and their easygoing, talkative son…

How silly it all seems now.

Brilliantly white teeth flashed and Daniel arched off of the floor, his nails digging into my hand as I concentrated ectoplasm from my finger and pressed it deeper inside him. Despite the pain on his face, his arousal strained proudly against my grip and his snarl blended into a breathy sigh as I shushed him softly.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he whined through his teeth. Pale thighs shook as I fought the building desire to tear him apart. A growl rose in my throat as I pressed a second finger to his entrance and I fought it down.

“Remember to breathe, Daniel.”

My voice felt thick. The boy’s body trembled around my fingers and then relaxed.

“Ahhh-” A green eye cracked open, shimmering with tears. I smoothed my thumb across his erection to watch the lovely, agonized expression it caused. Another gentle stretch and his head lolled back, his spine curving sharply. The bite mark at the base of his neck was beginning to turn odd colors. I wanted to dig my teeth into it, but I turned my focus back to the suffocating heat beckoning me deeper. “F-feels like I’m … gonna faint...”

“Look at me.” He turned his wretchedly beautiful stare to me, gripping harder onto my shoulder and my wrist. “You _will_ last.”

“Vlad-” I forced a third finger into the slick and gave his length two slow strokes at the same time. “Ahhh! V- _Vlad_ …”

Good _God_ , that face.

The groan came out before I could prevent it, Danny’s grasp on the hand I was preparing him with so tight that I heard a single knuckle crack.

How he could handle such pain and still be so turned-on was worlds beyond me.

Releasing a final burst of liquid ectoplasm, I gave a warning squeeze to his arousal and began to withdraw my fingers. The half-sob he gave was desperate.

I gripped his bony hips and slammed into him before he could take another breath.

The scream he released is the sexiest thing I have ever heard.

Darkness filled my vision and I raked in a breath despite the tight and the slick and the _heat_. Danny writhed, nails digging into my flesh as he released a hoarse whine, vibrating with terror and ecstasy.

“Breathe.” I rested my lips against his cheek while he shuddered. A near-painful clench of his body shot a bolt of fire up my spine. _So tight_.

The ghost boy gasped sharply, head rolled back and eyes clenched shut. Finally he released a long, shaky breath. His glassy eyes fluttered open and he met my gaze. The determination shining through his fearful stare made me want to pound him into the floor.

Gingerly, I shifted my hips back, the icy air meeting my flesh as I ground my teeth together. Muscular legs squeezed my torso and Danny whimpered faintly into my hair. I took a second to breathe in the smell of his skin and sweat and fear before pushing in deep.

“Ahh - oh God.”

“You’re so tight, Danny.” At my praise, the boy’s grip tightened on my ribcage. I braced my forearm above his head, gripped his straining length, and began moving again.

Daniel’s hips jerked down to meet mine and a hoarse cry escaped him, his insides seizing at me hitting deeper than before. At his body responding immediately despite his terrified inexperience, something deep and predatory gave a twinge within my core. Nuzzling the fragile space beneath his ear, I rubbed his slickened arousal and rocked again into the suffocating heat.

“ _Ohmygod._ ” My rival’s fingers scrambled over my skin as I eased into his quivering body. “Oh _fuck_ , Vlad.”

“Language, Daniel,” I ground out, and his breathy sob into my ear beckoned my hips deeper on the next thrust.

Electricity snapped from his skin as I pressed my mouth to the pale column of his neck and slid my hand into the small of his back. He moaned weakly and hid his face beneath my chin at the change of angle, his wiry body shuddering violently. Ghostly hands scrabbled down my back for anchorage they couldn’t find.

I ground my hips against him, pushing as slow and deep as possible and savoring the heat and the submissive little noise he made before beginning to move faster.

Icy breath poured from the boy’s mouth and he _wailed_ when I pressed into that little bundle of nerves hidden just inside him. The sound was raw and terrified and desperate. Anything within twenty miles would’ve heard it, and the thought made me even hotter.

“Vlad. Oh my God, oh _God_ , Vlad, please, _please_ yes, _please_ -”

Danny’s eyes were so bright they were almost blinding, and ice spilled into the air from between his parted lips like white smoke. I realized belatedly that energy was leaking from his straining fingertips and filling my skin with its sharp, crackling thrum. Whether being a halfa had increased his pain tolerance or he was something of a masochist I couldn’t tell. The pain of restraining myself to a moderate pace when everything in me was screaming to fuck him senseless tore a growl from my throat.

“Ahhn! Vlad!” Pale skin glowed with ghostly power as his head lolled back, his snowy white hair spilling against the floor as tears streamed from his screwed-shut eyes.

The pained look on his face made me freeze.

Blearily, he opened his eyes, his breaths loud and rasping. “V-Vlad?”

“Daniel-” I squeezed my eyes shut, willed myself not to think about the soft skin and suffocating heat, and tried again. “-are you - do you want me to stop?”

The boy let out a panicked whine. “Vlaaad - please!” He writhed against me, the velvety friction making me hiss through my teeth. “Don’t stop please _please_ don’t _stop!_ ”

My rival gripped my shoulders and pulled me toward him with all his might, staring at me like I was the only thing keeping him alive.

With a shudder of relief I buried myself inside him and plunged my tongue into his mouth.

The sound of my hips slapping against his soft skin grew louder, echoing around us and melding with Danny’s pleading cries every time my mouth left his to suck down a breath of air. His teeth clacked against mine as he desperately sought out my tongue with his own and I tightened my grasp on his hip, holding him steady and moaning into his lips. Legs squeezed my sides in a vicelike grip and Danny’s hands clawed over my back to pull me impossibly closer. I dug my fingers into his soft hair and tore my tongue from the pliant mouth that seemed to be trying to swallow me entirely, sinking my teeth into the delicate place behind his ear and moaning with relief at his scream. I wanted him, all of him, his voice and his glorious eyes and his wiry muscle and the sweet, velvety softness of his insides, and I wanted him to be mine and mine alone forever.

“Vlad,” he sobbed, a string of drool running obscenely from the corner of his mouth as he writhed and bucked his hips back onto my cock. “God - God, yes - please-”

“Breathe, my dear.” His nails digging down into my skin sent a fierce whorl of heat through my stomach. “Just - breathe - _ahhh!_ ”

Despite the pain, the boy’s length was hot and hard and weeping as it bumped against me, prompting me to shift my weight to my elbows and reach for it once more. The boy’s violent spasms and cries were becoming incoherent, nearly reaching ecstasy, but I was pushing him in a way his body had never before been pushed and there was no way-

“Vlad - ohmigod I - _I’m_ -”

Before my fingers had even closed on his arousal Danny let loose a shriek that split my ears and sent an excruciating wave of power rippling down my spine. He writhed against me, body convulsing around my cock as I pressed into him, light spilling in radiant beams from his eyes and his wide-open mouth as his nails sank deep into my skin. I let loose a shout of frustration and forced my hand to move on his erection despite Plasmius’s overwhelming desire to ignore his pleasure and selfishly pound into the vicelike heat as it clenched around me in waves.

The beauty of his orgasm began to fade as quickly as it had started, and Danny’s palms pressed shakily against my shoulders as the last of his seed came in spurts over my hand. I watched his expression morph, going from exquisite agony to exhaustion to fearfully wanting as the waves of it washed over him and I slowed my thrusts. He finally melted beneath me with a broken sob. Slender fingers fell to either side, clenching and unclenching uselessly as his head lolled back and stilled. I carefully pulled my arm out from where it had supported the small of his back and he flopped bonelessly against the floor in its absence. When I slid myself gingerly from his trembling body he let out a soft whine.

Moments passed as I struggled for breath, the dense air of the Ghost Zone gradually supplying my lungs with the sated fullness of before.

As the tremors wracking his frame ceased, I ran a hand over his face, wiping away the saliva and brushing his snowy bangs off of his forehead.

“Was it what you expected?”

Danny’s eyes fluttered open and he gazed at me, utterly wrecked.

“No.”


End file.
